Sunday in Paris

We started out the day by going to church. Turned out to be a very multicultural experience. They have sunday school in chinese, english and french and then come together for a sacrament meeting all in French, they do english and chinese translation. So incredible to see the gift of tounges in action. There were tons of missionaries in this ward. One of them was some guy from utah translating french into chinese!!! That is only possible through divine intervention! Singing in French was quite a challenge as well. I am so glad the Holy Ghost speaks the language of the heart. So we had brought all our things to church with us. Charlotte was sure we could find someone to put us up for the night so we didn't have to go back to our shady hostel. I felt pretty wierd about this but she really wanted to. So after church she starts talking to someone aobut this and everyone says that we needed to talk to Brother Shirtliff. So Charlotte catches him and he says that his wife is traveling in California but we are welcome to stay if that's ok with us. Considering what we came from that is great. So as we walk home I asked him if he is from California since his wife is visiting there. He told us that he grew up there in Santa Barbara. ha! He is a little older but went to hight school and young mens and all with all the Mann's and knew Grandpa and Grandma really well. What an incredibly small world! So we are now staying in a really great part of town. Brother Shirtliff is heading to Poland in the morning so we will have the place to ourselves!!! What a blessing!

This is the elevator in the complex. Just barely enough room for two bodies. So cool.

His house is right next to the Rodin museum, so we headed there first. This is his famous "Thinker".

I couldn't really understand what he was so deep in thought about....haha

This is his depiction of the gates of hell. Any time any french person tries to put you down your trum card can be..."well, the gates of hell are in Paris"...

Again another beautiful park looking back on the museum, lots of french people sitting around chatting. We decided to follow their lead and took a fantastic nap in the sun.

From there we walked over to the Hotel de Invalides. This is the church on the grounds. It was built by another one of the Henry's as a kind of hostel to all the men who were disabled in the various wars they were in.

The grounds were covered in flowers. This is one of my favorites.

Again. I don't know what this is. There are just too many amazing things in this city for the tour books to cover them all. I am sure these gold statues represent something, but I just thought they were really stunning.

This statues is at the bottom of one of those huge columns. Besides Jesus, I think this lady should be the example for young women. Strength and beauty!

From there we walked along the banks of the seine and came across this really cool outdoor exhibit of different photographers. This was one of my favorite photographs.

I also really liked this one, I can see Daren doing this. Hey mom....you should get the parks and rec people to do something like this in downtown Visalia. I am sure there are tons of local artists that would love to have their work on display. It was so nice to just stroll and enjoy all the photographs.

We finished off the night with the Eiffle tower. Really spectacular at night. About every hour they make a bunch of little white lights flash. It looks like there are picture flashes going off all over it. It's really quite stunning. We went and sat on the grass and had dinner (a baguette with ham and the most amazing garlic cheese I have ever had...yummy!) and watched the show.

This is a video of Charlotte and I infront of the eiffle tower while it is flashing.